Podcast 264 – The French Conundrum

The Green and Gold Rugby Show is back for another week, as Super Rugby got back underway and the Lions series came to a dramatic end. Hugh, Matt and Jamie chew the fat on the weekend of rugby (including letting off some steam on the Waratahs performance of the weekend), and were joined again by JB of The Eggchaser’s Podcast to talk all things Lions.

Warning – mild coarse language

The Five Burning Questions:

1. The Draw – the right result or a hollow ending? (Featuring JB)2. Did Romain get it right? (Featuring JB)3. What lessons can the Wallabies take from the Lions series?4. Who is the best Aussie Super Rugby team going into the final round?5. What are you looking out for in the final round of Super Rugby?

1. I fail to understand why Romain Poite did not adopt the stance of so many modern day referee’s and penalise Ken Owens and when explaining to a protesting Sam Warburton and surrounding B&I Lions players simply say “Your player made a play for the ball from an offside position. We have reviewed it. Unfortunately, the rules leave me no option but award a penalty”. All responsibility is passed from Poite and the officiating crew to the rule book.

2. My father always taught me to never argue with the referee because they will never change their decision. What sort of precedent has Poite set here with this incident? World Rugby protocol states an AR can advise a match referee in making a decision. An AR does not have the power to overturn a decision agreed upon by the match referee and TMO. What possibilities has Saturday’s series of events opened up going forward?

3. The B&I Lions tour was a significant learning experience for us all here Down Under that rugby can be won multiple ways – including establishing an arm wrestle, shrink time and space for opposition attack, be excellent on the tackle and develop world class goal kickers. We love the style of play that is encouraged down here. It is not the only way though – particularly when pressures are greatest.

4. It would appear the Waratahs have stopped playing for coach Daryl Gibson. Does that imply they’ve also stopped playing for captain Michael Hooper? Who is the leadership group within the Waratahs playing roster? Who has allowed such slippage in overall standards from the peak of just 3 years ago?

5. What are the real grounds for the Force to be axed versus the Rebels? Is it lower wind-up cost? Is it a less contestable legal battle? Is it deeper Melbourne pockets? Is it cost of operation? The Force are outperforming the Rebels in every metric – except it would appear in the one that matters most.

Hugh Cavill

5. A less contestable legal battle.

Pearcewreck

1. I fail to understand why Poite didn’t penalise Read for deliberately taking out the BIL jumper in the air, and making contact to his head.
2. The reason Poite listened to Warbuton is because Warburton didn’t really question any decisions in the first 78 minutes, unlike Read who is a persitent whinger.
3. The pressure the BIL executed caused NZ to have a bit of a choke really.
4. Hopefully Gibson goes back to NZ ASAP.
5. What Hugh Cavill said.

Huw Tindall

Check out Nick Bishop’s analysis on the The Roar. Best I’ve seen yet. Perhaps most obvious the ball went backwards out of Liam Williams hands and therefore there can’t be off-side. Full stop. Shut the gate.

Tommy Brady

Quality analysis.

jamie

re 5. Melbourne is Australia’s sporting capital and a far larger city than Perth. I personally think Melbourne has a higher ceiling than Perth, obviously the ARU do too (not often I agree with the ARU but hey). Whether rugby in Melbourne ever reaches that ceiling is an entirely different matter.

Harbo

Now that we are back to super rugby to make myself feel better I re-watched the 2011 Reds-Crusaders final. If you look at the Reds XV compared to the Crusaders XV on paper you would say the Reds should have been towelled up by 30. The difference? Link.

As we all know, there is a huge coaching problem in Australia that needs to be addressed. Not just at super level but national level. Although he obviously knew the Reds strengths, Links preparations before each and every game was second to none that year and tailored to every team they were playing. I haven’t seen a side coached that well in a long time here until Wessells this year. Obviously his approach to coaching is different to Links but he’s had an amazing year and the Force should be proud.

Throwing all bias out the window in answer to point 4 the Force are the best team and organisation this year and it has shown immensely how important a good coach is!

jamie

Bloke was severely underrated as a coach. I reckon much of our 2015 was his coaching nous, and the culture Cheika established. Cheika as a team manager and Link as head coach, with Laurie forwards coach, and someone that can actually defend as defense coach would be my dream team.

Andy

Link was a fantastic coach. And Wessells seems to be extremely capable. But I know there is a lot of Cheika hate across Aus rugby but it has to be said he did a fantastic job for NSW. I’ve been watching the Tahs for 35 years and that was the best period I can remember. They were an absolute debacle when he picked them up and by the time he left they had won the Comp and were a very competitive outfit.
It’s just a shame that the last 18 months with the Wallabies has been so bad as I think it’s tarnished his reputation amongst a huge number of people (and to an extent, myself). Similar to Link in his last 12 months.

Huw Tindall

Loved the tinfoil hat conspiracy with the ARU happy to let the franchises go bust so they can acquire their franchise licences and then centralise the whole thing. 46 mins into the pod! I’d actually love that to happen. States have too many vested interests to ever get together and do a national approach properly. ARU owns the NRC and that’s the only rugby comp that shows signs of actually growing and it’s a bloody good watch too!

mikado

1. I’ve no problem with a rugby match or series ending as a draw. However the ABs will rightly feel a little robbed, both in terms of the individual decision and in terms of the overall series where NZ were (slightly) better than the BIL.

2. He got it wrong – it should not have been called accidental offside. It could have been called a penalty against Read for bumping Liam Williams without getting near the ball himself. I also don’t think that Williams knocked the ball forwards, in which case I don’t think there was an offside at all. So perhaps a reasonable conclusion with a scrum to NZ even though the thought process was wrong!

3. High pressure defence (based on good fitness!)

4. Brumbies. The conference table doesn’t lie, and a very narrow loss away from home to the Reds doesn’t change that.

5. A bit of pride from the Aussie teams, and the Waratahs in particular. Crusaders to take the #1 seeding, to stop the Lions getting undeserved home advantage all the way to the final.

mark_s

Whether it was accidental or intentional offside (I can see it either way), I think Poite’s biggest mistake was not playing advantage. If he does, the original call is likely a non-event as the AB’s were away and would likely have had their advantage and we have an exciting 3 minutes to end the game. May still have been a draw, who knows?, but it would have been a better finish.
Re Jamie’s 6th question (re AB scape goats), SBW for sure and Savea (probably). Other than goal kicking, Beauden Barret had a very good series.

Pedro

I think the Brums haven’t been overly convincing but they only got blown away once. Considering that they’re a chance to at least win their first final. Plus lealiifano.

Andy

Nice P Cast. You mentioned that the tahs coaching is the main cause of their demise. I agree it has been a enormous contributor but do you honestly think their roster is worthy of being called the best in the Oz conference? I think that is very debatable. Sure they have a lot of contracted Wallabies but quite frankly, a lot of those guys shouldn’t be close to Wallabies selection.

Interestingly, if I compare the starting 15 for this weekends game against the force I would only have 2 tahs in the starting forward pack (Hooper and Kepu) and 2 in the backline (Folau and Foley). I literally couldn’t justify any of the rest starting over their Force counterparts. And the bench wouldn’t be much different.

Hugh Cavill

It’s all a bit subjective, but when everyone is fit (and they have been most of the season) they have an all-Wallaby front row, IMO three of the best four players in Australia (Hooper, Folau, Foley), an longstanding 9-10 combination, and a few really good young prospects (Hanigan, Dempsey, Kellaway, Clark). They also have really good depth (quality players like Reece Robinson can’t make the 23). They have absolutely no excuses not to be a top 8 side.

Andy

Each to their own. I can’t fathom how Reece Robinson is rated as quality. But that’s just my opinion.